Online guide to laptop and notebook computers, description of laptop components and what to look for when buying a laptop to fit your needs. List of Recommended Gaming Laptops, and Laptops for Workstation use.

As of January 2010 Intel has changed the Centrino brand to represent only their wireless products. 2009 was a transition year where they moved away from Centrino towards the Core i3/i5/i7 processor as a brand to look for in laptops.

Centrino is mainly a mobile platform and branding effort by Intel, the full name being “Intel Centrino Mobile Technology”. It is not a specific component of a laptop such as the screen or processor, but a group of components.

Laptop manufacturers couldn’t use the term “Centrino” and benefit from Intel’s massive ad campaign and branding effort unless they included the required components listed below:

Third Generation Centrino 2 Components (2008):

Intel Core 2 Processor

Intel Mobile Express Series 4 Chipset

Along with faster processors and front side bus speeds comes support for DDR3 memory on this chipset. Each chipset listed as part of the Mobile Express Series 4 supports most or all of the features above it in the list below.

PM45

667 Mhz, 800 Mhz, 1066 Mhz front side bus

Supports DDR2 at 667 or 800 Mhz and DDR3 at 667, 800, 1066 Mhz

Dual Channel Memory support

Max of 8gb

16x PCI Express

GM45

Additional CPU support: Pentium and Celeron on 45nm technology and a few other Celeron CPU’s on 65nm

First Generation Centrino Components (2003 – 2005):

Intel Pentium M Processor

Intel Mobile 915 and 855 Express Chipsets

Not only designed to take advantage of all the great power saving features of the Pentium M, the chipsets themselves are also highly optimized to save power.
A laptop will come with one or the other(915 or 855), the main difference is the 915 Express supports newer technologies such as PCI Express, DDR2, Dual Channel Memory, Serial ATA, Intel High Definition Audio, and 533 Mhz front side bus.

The three variations of the Mobile 915 Express are:

915GM with integrated graphics and dual channel memory support

915GMS like the previous but with single channel memory

915PM features 16x PCI Express for third party graphics such as ATI or Nvidia

The three variations of the Mobile 855 Express available are:

855PM features a 4x AGP interface for third party graphics

855GM includes integated graphics capability

855GME like the previous but supports faster memory

Intel PRO/Wireless 2100, 2200, or 2915ABG Networking Card

A WiFi network card with power saving design in the form of five selectable power states that let you choose between battery life and performance.